Thursday, November 13, 2008

Music of the Week

Just like Marty McFly playing "Johnny B. Goode", we're ready to bring you something that really cooks! Strap in and hold on, because we're getting ready to travel to a new time... the time of JET SET RADIO, where the JSRevolution is leading the way of the future! And trust me, when we get this journey going, you're going to see some serious shit!

This week, we bring you a duo who's really starting to heat up the Japanese music scene. They're winners of the Japan Gold Disc Award, recent guests of Anime Central 2008, and special guests from this year's Japan Day Festival. Known for their work on Naruto Shippuuden and Demashitta! Powerpuff Girls Z, from Meguro, Japan, I present HALCALI!

Yucali and Halca first met in classes at their dance and talent school when they were ten years old. Both girls only intended to train in dance and wanted to eventually become back up dancers for other musicians. Eventually they were encouraged to take singing lessons as well, although it remained a secondary interest.

In 2002, Halca and Yucali spotted the poster that would lead them to the RIP SLYME audition to form a new rap group. Although they both enjoyed rap music, they originally were only interested in the audition because the poster was pink and adorable. In fact, they were so young that they couldn’t even read the kanji on the poster well enough to fully understand it. Halca and Yucali decided to give the audition a shot with a group of their friends. Originally there were five of them, all friends from their talent school, but the group quickly thinned out to the two of them.

HALCALI began a regular schedule of single releases and promotions and had a whirlwind of a first year, leading up to the release of their first album, HALCALI Bacon. Although mostly produced by O.T.F. it also began to bring in other hip hop musicians, such as the Fantastic Plastic Machine and Kohei Japan, to help with some of the tracks. The album was popular and ended up making it to number five on the Oricon album ranking. This made it the first album by a female hip-hop artist to make it into the top ten.

HALCALI has always been a completely unique Japanese musical group. Although they are just two young girls, they have proven to be a rallying point for many of the greatest minds in Japanese hip-hop today including m-flo, RHYMSTER, O.T.F., Supercar, Schadara parr, Halfby, POLYSICS, and Fantastic Plastic Machine. Even HALCALI themselves can’t really explain all the attention that they draw from the major names in the business.

Well, that's it for this week! Make sure to punch in the time circuits and can generate the 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity to power the Flux Capacitor to make it to next week's post! No matter what time period you're in, the JSRevolution will be there to help you Shape The Future With Music!